Thursday, August 18, 2011

For those who don't know, Divine Intervention was a spell that killed the casting paladin, but removed another player from combat and encased him in a unbreakable bubble for up to three minutes. It was generally used to save someone when wiping, or possibly to grief the tank.

Divine Intervention definitely was a clunky spell, mechanics-wise, but I always felt that it spoke to the heart of the paladin class. The paladin sacrificing herself to save a comrade.

I had the thought that--if it was still in the game--Divine Intervention would actually work really nicely with Mass Resurrection. Wipe is called, you DI anyone else still alive, and they Mass Res the raid.

I'll never forget my first encounter with DI. A paladin friend had just run my lowbie priest through Razorfen Kraul and we were being silly near the entrance, when he randomly cast DI on someone and keeled over. Back in Vanilla I had a hunter friend who would endlessly wind me up by feigning death all the time (back when it looked like they were really dead, even to allies), so I just thought that paladins had something similar. I remember my stunned surprise when I realised that no, he wasn't feigning, he actually did have an ability that allowed him to commit suicide.

That was one of the first spells I tried casting in a group format, not quite understanding what it was about. When I suddenly died, that was a shock. (And provided no small amount of merriment to the people I was with at the time.)

In the end, it served a specialized purpose in raiding when you never saw a beneficial use for it 98% of the time outside of a raid.

I still remember the first time I saw this used in a group, on me, during a bad pull in some 5-man instance. I saw the bad happening and went into "oh crap" mode and set myself to start deflecting some aggro, maybe trap something, but wht!? I couldn't move, couldn't do anything! I watched in horror as my group-mates were slaughtered! I thought my PC has crapped out on me at the worst possible moment! I apologised profusely.

Back when I raided as a holy paladin I got a new mouse. Until that point, I hadn't paid any attention to what Vuhdo had mapped by defualt to mouse buttons I didn't have.

So I happily bound my vent ptt to one of my brand new shiny mouse buttons and away we went.

First pull, I went to say something in vent and found myself dead. What the HELL? We all thought, I must have hit my DI button somehow. After three or four such occurrences I realized I had bound my ptt and DI to the same mouse button.

To this day when I raid with that guild (on a shaman now) someone always warns me not to DI the tank on the pull.

I can kind of understand removing it, but it had far more utility than, say, Sentry Totem, and it sped up wipe recovery immensely. If a rogue* or mage or hunter or ANY NIGHT ELF can mass res after a wipe, why can't someone the paladin saves do that?

* - My raiding main is a rogue, and I put a lot of thought into "can I vanish on the wipe? If so, how?" I'm most proud of flying up on Alysrazor and staying airborne until the last member of the raid died and vanishing.

Don't think I ever saw/used this - I wasn't going in dungeons when I first levelled a paladin when this would have been around. Sounds brilliant - if I could have trusted myself to remember to use it and not use it too soon and unnecessarily (like when I panic press Lay on of Hands!)

My dad plays a resto shaman, and was DId on putricide one night. He lost his shit on vent, yelling "nothing works! I can't move! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME!!" to the absolute delight of the raid. By the time we'd explained the whole DI concept and how to click it off the prof had respawned, and proceeded to 2-shot him. He still hasn't lived it down :)

good times when this was still around. I used to run with a pally tank way back when, if stuff looked fubar, and he felt it was going to be a wipe, he'd DI me, and as i was the healer that obviousely led to a wipe. I'd wait till combat reset, rez him and we'd start over. We even did it on purpose whenever some dps would piss us off.

1 ninjapull, warning, 2nd ninjapull, DI, and all de dps would wipe. Good times indeed. I loved that spell.

I really miss DI myself. It was one of those spells that, while pointless outside of a party or raid environment, added a very niche utility to the paladin class.

As for how OP it was, I just don't see that. It was mostly used to save repair bill, and rarely affected any boss mechanics in any way. And most of the times when it could hinder a boss mechanic, it's not something a combat ress couldn't get around anyway.